JOHN SIMPSON

Immense palm trees line the entrance to its ice-white Art Deco elegance, which is set in the greenest lawns imaginable. In the 1930s and 40s the Imperial Hotel was where the future of India took shape: Nehru based himself here, Mountbatten came to see him every day, and Jinnah announced the birth of Pakistan in its ballroom. Now the scent of perfumed candles drifts through the halls, and magnificent oil paintings, prints and collections of medals from the long noon of the British Raj decorate the walls.

Which makes it highly suitable, therefore, that here in Room 370, I should be gazing admiringly at a portrait of Queen Victoria herself. Not hanging on the wall, but propped up on an armchair, and not a painting but a heavy piece of wrought ironwork. She's in profile, with a crown on her head, her hair in ringlets round her ears and done up in a bun. She comes originally from across the border in Pakistan, in that most imperial of Victorian India's cities, Peshawar.

It was some years ago now that I first saw her. I was wandering through the old quarter of Peshawar with Peter Jouvenal, now one of Kabul's successful hoteliers, but who was then the doyen of television cameramen in Afghanistan. I have a great affection for Peshawar. It's a touch difficult nowadays, and not always entirely safe for foreigners, yet it's still recognizably a British garrison town, with barracks and parade grounds and neat bungalows with big green gardens. Its closeness to the Khyber Pass and to Afghanistan makes it impossibly exotic, but millennia before Kipling it was a crossroads for traders, soldiers, invaders and thieves. In my wallet, lying on the desk as I write this, I keep a silver shilling of Elizabeth I of England, which I found in a junk shop in Peshawar's unceasingly fascinating bazaar. However could it have got there? And when?

Peter and I wandered through the maze of little streets, the mud-brick houses nearly meeting over our heads. We passed a once-grand traditional house, which, like so much of Peshawar's architectural heritage, was being demolished. I glanced up, and spotted something quite extraordinary: the Northwest Frontier merchant who lived here had demonstrated his fervent loyalty to the Raj by having a set of cast-iron railings made with the head of the young Queen Victoria on them. They were rusty and a little forlorn, but Peter and I bought the lot.

At that stage Peter was living in Peshawar, but after the flight of the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, which he filmed, Peter went to live in Kabul, and took the Queen Victorias with him. He opened Gandamak Lodge, a delightful small hotel in a house previously used by Osama bin Laden.

I stayed there several times, and once got as far as packaging up one of the Victorias - but managed to leave her behind. When I went to Kabul this time, though, I was determined to bring her back. There was only one problem. The Afghans are rightly concerned to keep their artistic heritage at home, and when I left the country I would have to demonstrate that Queen Victoria, who had originated across the border in Pakistan, wasn't part of it. Hanif, my superb fixer-translator, had an idea. His main job is reading the news on Afghan TV, and he knows everyone - including the director of the National Museum.

The last time I had been in the director's office, the Taliban had just looted the museum and were using the office as a public lavatory, but I felt it was a bit tactless to say so. Instead, I drank several cups of green tea and listened as he told me about the remarkable transformation of the ruins back into a functioning museum. Now many of the looted items have been found and returned, sometimes from sale rooms in London and Copenhagen.

Then Hanif explained to him about my Queen Victoria. As a man who was more interested in Buddhist carvings and Islamic ceramics than bits of 19th-century tat, however romantic, the museum director agreed she was no part of Afghanistan's artistic heritage. He dictated a splendid letter, covered with seals and signatures and coats of arms, for me to show the Kabul airport officials. Then we went to see someone with a receipt book who explained I would have to pay 5 per cent of Victoria's value. Fine, I said, but I didn't know how much she was worth, and anyway I only had a £10 note on me. By some extraordinary coincidence, this proved to be exactly the right amount.

But would customs accept the certificate? "No problem, I will be with you," said Hanif; and indeed it was like having Sir Trevor McDonald shepherd you through Heathrow, or my old friend Peter Jennings, sadly dead now, show you through JFK. People actually bowed to him. The customs turned out to be fine, but even Hanif wasn't quite sure what would happen at the last security check. I gave his hand a farewell shake.

The officer operating the X-ray machine wasn't enthusiastic. As a traditionally-minded man he disapproved of Victoria showing so much hair. But he read the letter, and decided it was all right. Then he looked back at Victoria, and recognition dawned. "England Queen?" he asked. I nodded. "Margaret Thatcher?" he added. "Up to a point," I said.

Then I picked her up and headed off across the hot tarmac for the plane to Delhi and, eventually, the lovely, cool, comfortable Imperial Hotel.

John Simpson is the BBC's world affairs editor and can be seen around the globe on the BBC World news channel. BBC World is available in 200 countries and territories worldwide and on selected flights.